President's Message

july 2021 

New Council Members, FIT to FACC, Collaborative Maintenance Pathway, Free CME 

Hello Maryland ACC Colleagues!

Hope everyone is having a great summer so far. June was a busy month for the MD Chapter and we would like to update everyone on a few important initiatives.

New Council Members: We are grateful for all the enthusiastic submissions. Thank you for volunteering. The MDACC Council would like to welcome our newest members! Dr. Martin Albornoz, Dr. Bhavin Patel, Dr. Jonathan Chrispin were selected to their first term as Council Members. We thank them for their engagement. Additionally, past-presidents, Dr. Marc Mugmon, Dr. Anuj Gupta and Dr. Sam Goldberg will continue to provide their institutional memory to the MDACC and will stay on as Emeritus Presidents. Dr. Jasmin Sahbaz will be the Early Career Representative as he graduates from being an FIT and enters practice in Maryland. Lastly, Dr. Ali Wand and Dr. Alexandra Byrne will serves as the new FIT representatives from Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland.

FIT to FACC: Congratulations to all the graduating FITs! We are all so proud of your accomplishments. We hope you continue to stay engaged with the ACC, make it your professional home for career development, and apply now to become an FACC. The process is easy and requires two nominating letters. The MDACC will gladly fill out these sponsorship letters for you. Please reach out to either me (president@marylandacc.org) or email Jennifer Ray Beckman (jennifer@marylandacc.org).

Collaborative Maintenance Pathway (CMP): For those of you who are board certified and are looking for MOC and an alternative to the 10-year recertification exam, please consider signing up for CMP. This is an alternative MOC assessment option to ABIM Cardiovascular Boards and so much MORE! The CMP is MORE THAN TESTING – it's about learning and refreshing your knowledge on a yearly basis. It's delivered through ACC's Self-Assessment Programs (SAP), so it includes comprehensive educational material and annual updates. You'll receive text and video presentations created by experts, plus hundreds of self-assessment questions. Learn in whatever format suits your needs – reading, watching and/or listening. I hope you check it out. For more information please go to www.acc.org/education.

FREE CME Webinars: As a part of membership value, the MDACC will offer a series of educational webinars starting this fall with CME. Dr. Sammy Zakaria and Dr. Jonathan Chrispin have an excellent series planned with multidisciplinary, clinically relevant topics in cardiology. They will showcase our talented next-generation leaders in cardiovascular medicine in topics ranging from management of HCM, contemporary approaches to ventricular tachycardia, advanced lipid therapies, shock-team, and mechanical circulatory support. Stay tuned for more information.

CVTeam corner: The CVTeam representatives will be getting together again in the fall with a continuation of their very well received “Pillars of Cardiology” series and will engage us on many different and clinically relevant topics.

Have a wonderful July 4th celebration!

Garima Sharma, MD, FACC

President, Maryland Chapter ACC